By Freedom Siasia
Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, has once again proven why Nigerians have lost faith in the Tinubu administration’s capacity to address real issues. In response to a simple, patriotic call by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar urging Nigerians to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and his honest observation that life has become unbearably expensive, Keyamo chose to dig up a 22 year old file: the liquidation of Nigeria Airways in 2004.
It is a classic case of a man who has no answer for today, hiding in yesterday.
For the benefit of young Nigerians who Keyamo thinks can be “hoodwinked,” let us set the record straight.
Nigeria Airways did not die in 2004. It died long before that. By the late 1990s, the airline that was once the pride of Africa had become a national embarrassment. It had a fleet of 32 aircraft, but only one was airworthy. It owed over $500 million in debts. Its planes were seized abroad for non-payment. Workers were owed months of salaries. It was a textbook case of state failure. The decision to liquidate it in September 2004 was not Atiku Abubakar’s personal decision. It was a Federal Executive Council decision presided over by President Olusegun Obasanjo after every effort to privatize and save it failed.
The Obasanjo/Atiku administration, for all its imperfections, took hard decisions to save Nigeria from collapsing parastatals. That government, which Atiku is proud to have served, paid off pension arrears, secured $18 billion debt relief, grew our foreign reserves from $2 billion to over $60 billion, liberalized telecoms that gave us GSM, and created the EFCC.
What has the government Keyamo serves created?
In two years as Aviation Minister, what is Festus Keyamo’s scorecard? The much hyped Nigeria Air project he met was exposed as a fraud. An Ethiopian Airlines plane painted and presented as Nigerian. Today, Nigerian airports are dark, airlines are shutting down routes because of multiple taxation and aviation fuel at over ₦1,200 per litre, passengers are stranded daily, and safety standards are declining. Instead of fixing these, the Minister is a full-time Twitter historian.
Keyamo’s bragging about President Bola Tinubu releasing ₦36 billion for former Nigeria Airways workers is both laughable and insulting. First, paying workers their legitimate entitlements after 22 years is not a favour; it is the duty of the government. Continuity is the essence of governance. Secondly, that money is not Tinubu’s personal money, nor Keyamo’s. It is taxpayers’ money. If paying a 22 year old debt is now celebrated as an achievement, it shows how low this government has set the bar.
And while Keyamo celebrates ₦36 billion for pensioners which we commend, what about the millions of Nigerian workers and pensioners of TODAY who cannot afford a bag of rice that now costs ₦90,000? What about fuel that moved from ₦185 under Buhari to ₦1,400 under Tinubu? What about the naira that collapsed from ₦450 to ₦1,600 to a dollar? Is that also the Atiku’s fault from 2004?
The hypocrisy Keyamo speaks of is actually his own. He accused Atiku of taking credit for Obasanjo’s achievements and running from its failures. Atiku has never run. He is proud of the economic growth, the jobs, and the reforms of 1999-2007. Can Keyamo be proud of the hunger, the insecurity, and the hopelessness of 2023-2026?
Atiku Abubakar spoke about PVCs because he believes power must return to the people peacefully. He spoke about the cost of living because Nigerians are suffering. These are issues of today. Keyamo responded with 2004 because his government has no answer for 2026.
Nigerians are not living in 2004. They are living in 2026, where they cannot feed, cannot travel safely, and cannot afford school fees. They don’t need a Minister who tweets history. They need a Minister who fixes runways.
Until he does that, Festus Keyamo should leave Atiku Abubakar alone and face his failing ministry.
